As Americans go to the polls today, I'm going to reflect on several items recently in the news.
Headline: "Americans Upset With Rising Health Costs". Excerpt: "Due to rising costs, Americans are falling behind in savings and struggling to handle even basic expenses, which over time has had a significant impact on their confidence in the health care system."
Headline: "Consumer Unease With U.S. Health Care Grows". Excerpt: "The U.S. health care system — touted as providing the best medical care in the world — is becoming more precarious to most Americans, who are rattled by rising costs, questions about quality and fears about the future. 'If you can afford it, it's the best health care system in the world, but, increasingly, people aren't able to afford it.' "
(Note: on the first day I visited the USA today website to read this story, it appeared alongside ads for a sleeping pill drug, a toenail fungus drug, and a new diet "as seen on 60 MInutes." Does anyone see a link between the two stories listed above, and the fact that the U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that allows direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising?)
Headline: "U.S. Lags in Several Areas of Health Care, Study Finds". Excerpt: "The United States trails other countries in adopting electronic medical records and computerized systems to remind patients about follow-up care, prompt physicians to give patients test results and warn of potentially harmful drug interactions. It found that primary care doctors in America were less likely to have financial incentives to improve the quality of the care they provide. 'Although the U.S. pays more for health care than any other country, we are under-investing in our primary care system.' "
It's a shame that in these midterm elections, politicians didn't spend more time on the meat of these issues, instead of dragging us through more Mark Foley, more John Kerry gaffes, and an unprecedented assault on our psyche with attack ads. There is so much that could be done and needs to be done.
Posted by schwitz at November 7, 2006 07:42 AM | TrackBackGary,
this blog is a great service and resource.
I am physician, a child of aging medicare parents and in the medical service business. Nothing is more in the forefront than the issue of Medicare and how it's coverage, policies and costs are affecting our aging society. It is worth emphasizing the need to embrace our system, albeit fractured, the system in many ways is still better than the others. I have written about this issue numerous times in my Keep Seniors Healthy blog at http://keepseniorshealthy.blogspot.com/ . While I address the issue of spiralling out of control medical costs, there is another issue that goes hand in hand and that is the medical liability crisis. It is not that frivolous suits are causing the problem, because most frivolous suits never get that far, it is the mentality of "fear" that doctors cannot avoid and thus practice in this manner. We, as physicians, are always concerned with doing the right thing, and not "missing the wrong thing". Missing the wrong thing unfortunately weighs on us so much that defensive medicine becomes a ritual and as a result costs skyrocket. People need to take control of their own health, I have created a FREE service at http://www.KeepSeniorsHealthy.com where seniors can create their own FREE personal health record so that they reduce the likelihood of becoming a medical mistake or statistic. It is important that people take advantage of these services.
Gary,
Nice irony-catch about the online ads you saw when visiting USA Today for the "Consumer Unease" story. But I wonder if the fact you saw ads for sleeping pills, toenail fungus relief and a new diet simply means "they" have "your" personal data and tailor the ads to the individual viewer.
I just went there again and got ads for the Wall Street Journal and Thrifty rent-a-car!